GRC shuts out Bourbon County for second time

Published 10:29 pm Tuesday, May 8, 2018

George Rogers Clark gained complete control of the game early and ended the night with a win against district opponent Bourbon County Tuesday night.

The Cardinals have given the Colonels only their fourth loss of the season and the Cards have been two of those losses, both games resulting in shut outs.

Bourbon started the game off with a double in the first inning and did not see much more action behind the plate.

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GRC started the game off with back to back walks to Dove and Puckett but were unable to score the first run.

Jake Ware was given the win on the mound.

He pitched all seven innings and allowed only three hits, no runs and finished with nine strikeouts.

All three batters for Bourbon in the second inning resulted in strikeouts for Ware.

GRC had a barrage of players collect hits including Tyler Walton, Bo Billings, Cameron Dove, Dakota Puckett, Caden Easterling and Ethan Neal all produced one hit.

The hits for GRC started in the second inning as Neal and Easterling both earned singles.

Dove managed to get a single and drove Neal home to give the Cards the first run of the game.

The Cards committed no errors in the field.

Easterling said his team did exactly what they needed to do to secure the win.

“Coach told us at the beginning that we needed to score four runs in the ballgame to win and that’s exactly what we did,” he said. “Jake Ware came out and pitched a heck of a game. He was sick and not feeling well. I think we executed timely hitting and got us a win.”

Head coach Matt Puckett was very satisfied with his team’s performance.

“We played really well,” he said. “We got some timely hits and of course Jake Ware was Jake Ware. He came out and competed and got ahead of counts. When it’s game time, he steps up and we just try to play defense behind him and let him take the lead and us back him up.”

Easterling said the two shut-out victories against Bourbon speaks a lot for the team.

“It shows that we’re a good team,” he said. “We know how to fight and compete. Tonight we sealed the one seed in the district so it shows we know how to compete every night.”

Puckett said that his team always takes care of business when necessary.

“They really know how to rise to the occasion,” he said. “When it’s time to play they strap up and play. Bourbon County is a great ball club. Coach Faris has been there a long time and does a wonderful job with them. They always have a competitive team. Anytime you can beat Montgomery County, Paris or anybody in your district you have to be happy about it.

He said that it was big time that the Cards have locked in the one seed.

“This game meant a lot to us,” he said. “We wanted the one seed so it was a big one for us to have home field advantage so it felt good.”

GRC had two games rained out last Saturday and played in its first home game since April 28.

Easterling said the game cancellations this past weekend helped the team more than it harmed.

“It was actually a blessing in the skies that we didn’t play,” he said. “We had a lot of guys who weren’t feeling well and their arms weren’t feeling well so we were able to get in the cage a lot this weekend which helped us a lot too.”

Puckett said that his team takes advantage of all the games they can get later on in the season that they added to their schedule due to the weather.

“It’s very important to play games like the ones we were supposed to have Saturday,” he said. “We face Madison Southern tomorrow now and I picked up another game with Garrard County down the road a little ways just to give us another game in the last week of the season. We’re just trying to get games in where we lost some but playing games gets you in momentum to play for post season and right now you want to play games and get into a hot streak where you can take it to the post season with you.”

GRC improved to 16-5 on the season and will face Madison Southern at home on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.